The Hurt Patrol (15 page)

Beau's eyes FLEW open and he JOLTED upright like he'd been cattle-prodded. His hand contracted involuntarily like a frog leg in biology class, and he accidently squashed her perfect, perky booby.

“Yow!”
Jewels's eyes flew open, too, as she nearly landed on the floor. That wasn't in the script.

Beau became immediately even more horrified, if that were humanly possible. He held both hands up like a criminal. “Omg! I'm sorry!! Is your boob gonna be okay?!” It sounded so hilarious that she laughed, even though that wasn't anywhere in the script either.

Okay, do-over.

So they kissed again. Just like in the movies. They kissed each other on the mouth, and on their throats and necks, and all over the damn place. They kissed and kissed and
kissed.
...

And all Beau could think was,
Omg, Jewels, I'm so sorry . . . She doesn't know I'm a fraud. . . . She doesn't know I'm a frog. Not a Prince, Jewels, which you deserve; I'm just a stupid frog.... So-so-sorry-so sorry-so sorry.
The words became the rhythm of his heartbeat. They became loud, became all he could hear. He kissed her back frantically, thinking if he could just
do
it, everything would be okay . . . just make it happen . . .

Eventually, dejectedly, Jewels got up and left the room.

Nothing ever happened.

Beau stops talking. He doesn't say anything for a little while, just sits there with his head kind of bowed. I don't feel like I can say anything worth hearing, so we just sit.

“Told you,” he says after a while.

“Dude . . .” It's all I got.

“I know. Sucks to be me. Till it got worse.”

It was springtime and school was cruising along—last semester, etc., when a new and crappy wrinkle developed. Beau's mom, Gina, finally decided to go for it and started talking about moving to Seattle. Beau was
not
interested. Let her go have her stupid boyfriend somewhere else. He didn't care.

But he was furious about it. He had gotten used to how they lived together, just the two of them; she was easygoing and had other interests, which rocked because she didn't do that helicopter-mom thing he'd heard mentioned, which just sounded oppressive. But so did living with his dad.

This resulted in a lot of fights, Beau sullenly refusing to talk, refusing to go to a mediator, or even admitting that he didn't want to go to Seattle, which confused them both. It also resulted in him yelling at her whenever she'd put her finger on what his problem was.

“Because you think it'd be somehow disloyal to your dad?” She stared at him with narrowed eyes. “That's it, isn't it?!”

“
No,
Mom!” he'd shout in a peeved way.
“Jeez!”

“
Why,
then?” she'd wail back in massive exasperation, “Why-Why-Why?!
Talk
to me
!
”

“Just NEVER MIND!” he'd bellow. It was their pattern, and they practiced it. Because according to her, Seattle was going to happen.

Also during this time, this jerk named Stephan moved to town, and it was like the B-movie plot when a new guy comes to the prison and attacks someone so
he
won't be the victim. Of course he fastened his sights on Beau. And this new guy soon got a crew at school of guys who were also jerks. So there was a new gang of fools to bother Beau, and he had kind of forgotten how bad that could be.

On more than one occasion when he was walking by himself, a multitude of guys would drive by—screeching as they roared past, the wind drawing it out,
FAAAAAAAAGGGGG!!!
This never failed to unnerve Beau, and that they enjoyed disproportionately. Life grew more complicated.

His relationship with Jewels also grew more complicated. She had been feeling a little down since her attempted seduction fail. She had not tried it again. They still hung out though. Doing things like reading magazines.

“Look at that girl. That's what I want to look like.”

“
No,
Jewels . . . no, it's not. That's just crazy. You're beautiful!”

“Nope. Not to people our age. I looked at this month's
Teen-y Cosmo,
and I don't have the right look,
or
the right body . . . not this summer, not next—not never—not for me, ever . . . noooo waaaaaayyy.”

“Those magazines are for dummies! With no sense of their own style! Screw
Teen-y Cosmo!
”

“Yeah, easy for you to say—Boy! Nobody is measuring
your
boob size!”

“Who cares?! Who cares about that crap?! Don't listen to those . . . copycats! They're idiots!”

“Hah! Right?! Who cares! Yeeeeeeee!”

“Exactly! It's the truth, though, Jewels! Don't listen to them.”

But she was listening to the copycats. And Beau felt guilty. But he didn't want to tell her why.

Beau looks over at me. “I am going to cut to the chase. I promise I'll tell you this some time in total detail, but right now I'm just wearing out.”

“Okay, dude, like I said, whatever you want to say is fine,” I tell him. “I don't mean to pry.”

“It's cool. What happened is Jewels got so sad she started talking about wishing she was dead, and they got scared so they took her to a shrink. This happened over a bunch of months and so finally they asked me, as her boyfriend, if there was anything I knew that would have made her feel so bad . . . omg, Rusty . . . I totally said no. I was such a coward.”

“What happened?”

He answers me savagely, like he hates himself for it. “I let it go on, till one day when Pete busted out crying because he was so worried about her. He said she had gotten too sad to even get out of bed. Then I got depressed too.”

“Jeez. What a mess.” I grimace sympathetically.

“Right? I knew I had to tell everyone that I was gay soon, but I so didn't want to.”

“So what did you do?”

Beau and Jewels were sitting in her room. They were supposed to see a counselor in a half hour, along with her parents, to help figure out why Jewels was so blue. Beau knew that was a waste of time. He had been sitting trying to tell her something for a little while as Jewels watched him. Barb called down they would be leaving in fifteen minutes.

And Beau knew in that instant that his life was about to change forever. He started to speak and stopped. A couple of times. Suddenly, he was blinded by silent tears.

He tried to get it out over the cacophony his heart was making—

“Gay,” he gasped.

It was all.

But it was enough.

He'd gotten it
out
.

And from Jewels . . . Silence. No response at all.

Eventually she spoke. “No way . . .”

He just shrugged, waiting for her. Watching her face.

She pondered.

“Since when?”

“Since forever.”

He could see her reflecting on their adventures together . . . adding it up.

She looked at him, her eyes round like an astonished goldfish. “Omg . . . you're
right
.”

Then all the air he couldn't find before came rushing into his lungs like bellows pumping, and he couldn't
stop
explaining or shut up. Words poured out so fast it was hard to comprehend what he was saying.

“Omg, Jewels! I should have told you before; I was just so scared you wouldn't like me anymore, and then I'd be SOL,
again,
and I just couldn't face it! I'm so sorry! I was too afraid to lose you—Oh, Jewels! I am
so
sorry! It's so not your fault! You're not ugly, you're gorgeous! You're
perfect
—I'm gay! I haven't told anyone! I haven't told my mom!”

Then he abruptly ran out of air again and just sat there, slouched, yet on the edge of his seat.

Jewels had her meditating face on again. Finally she spoke.

“Yeah. That totally makes sense.” She was still sorting. “So, dude, so all those douche bags were right?” she asked.

Beau flinched. “Um, the ones who scream
‘FAG'
out their car windows? Erm, no.”

“Yeah, good point . . . good point. Wow. Just
wow,
Beau. Wow, wow, wow . . . I never thought about it, because they call
everyone
gay. Everyone calls everyone gay all day, at school. How could I guess that in your case they nailed it?”

“You're the first person I've told,” he repeated. It was all he had.

Jewels nodded, and continued to muse. After a minute, she scowled and looked over at him.

“You could have done it sooner, Beau. You know what I'm like.”

“Jewels, I knew you'd be okay, but then you'd want to get a real boyfriend—which would probably result in me getting my ass kicked. Again: I'm a douche bag.”

Jewels just looked at him measuringly, and then shrugged slightly, and nodded.

“Sort of.”

“Dude!” Beau said, stung, “It's
hard!
And scary! You don't understand! Who else do you even know who's gay?!”

Again, she just stared deeply into his eyes, considering.

“Good point.”

Beau's face was extremely earnest. “Believe me, Jewels, if I'd known you were gonna get so down on yourself, I would have tried
way
harder to tell you a long time ago!”

“But Beau, you don't understand either. You have no idea what you did. You let me think I was UGLY . . . don't you get it? No—because you're a guy. You can't understand! You have no clue.”